


Seasons (Sam)

by leonidaslion



Series: Seasons [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Character Study, Drama, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-16
Updated: 2011-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-14 19:32:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/152697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leonidaslion/pseuds/leonidaslion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A look at Sam seen through the prism of the changing seasons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seasons (Sam)

  
**Spring (Mary)**   


Sam’s more than a little conflicted when it comes to spring. He’s tried to sort his feelings out—because he likes spring, he genuinely does—but whenever someone asks him what his favorite time of year is, he realizes that it ranks dead last, even behind summer.

The list of things he likes about spring is a mile long. Flowers pressing up from the earth in a sudden wash of color, startling after months of grey and white. The scent of rain in the air, on his tongue, and it’s possibly the best smell ever, except for that leather musk that he’s associated with Dean ever since he turned twelve and Dad finally caved and let him buy a leather jacket. Spring is the world waking, remembering that it’s alive. Sometimes Sam can almost hear the earth groan in the rush of labor.

Spring is finally being able to slip outside, to get away from the pressing _need/love/togetherness_ of Dean, who never even bothers to pretend he has somewhere else to be, and who can’t seem to understand that Sam is trying to find himself, to fumble his way into being a person in his own right, and not just someone’s son or brother. But Dean hates the rain, hates getting wet unless there’s a lake or a pool or a shower involved, and in the spring, when Dad’s off on a hunt, Sam can shake his brother off for days at a time. When Sam finally comes back, water dripping from his hair into his eyes, Dean yells at him and then tucks him in so close Sam can listen to his heart beating, fast and—although Dean will never in a million years admit it—frightened. And Sam’s never sure why he slips out into that underwater world in the first place: to get away from his brother, or to come back to him.

Spring, with the scent of rain in his mouth and the bight, almost violent green of the grass framing Jess’ pale skin, and then he can’t taste the rain anymore because the taste of _her_ is bleeding into him through his fingertips, through the length of his body, through his mouth. She’s shivering because it’s spring, and it’s still a little too cold to be doing this outside, or maybe she’s only shivering because it’s _him_ because afterwards, even when the warmth of their bodies starts to cool, she doesn’t want to move. Just wants to stay there, wrapped in his arms, wrapped by the soft, clean rain that covers them both.

A hundred things, or a thousand, but it turns out they can’t compete with one painful lump of a day. Dean and Dad can bake him as many cakes as they want, but it doesn’t change the fact that he’s still here, that they’re still living this way. Another year and nothing’s changed, except that he’s gotten bigger and maybe Dean’s gotten to be a little more like Dad.

Dean never forgets to mark the day, makes it special any way he can. First with cake and candy and then, when they’re older, with booze and girls. Dad always remembers, too, except for once when he forgets. But that’s because he’s in the hospital with a busted leg and three broken ribs, so Sam doesn’t really hold it against him. It isn’t as though he particularly enjoys the day anyway. Balloons and cake can’t ever really make up for the things that are missing. Like friends, and a home, and something indefinable that Sam can never put his finger on, but always associates with the image of his mother that he’s patched together from Dean’s stories.

Spring is a beautiful woman with long, yellow hair, and kind eyes, and a burnt, deformed face. It’s a reminder, hard and hurtful, that they’re different, that they’ll never be normal. Because Dad has no intention of changing and he’s going to drag Sam right along with him, unless he can find some way out. With the sickly sweet taste of frosting in his mouth, and Dean punching him in the arm— _and one more to grow on, Sammy_ —he always thinks, _well there it is, another year_. And wishes he didn’t feel so much like crying.

  
**Summer (John)**   


Sam still hates summer, even now that his life is no different during those four months than it is during the rest of the year. He’s gotten in the habit of hating it. He wishes he could push past it, especially when he sees how eager and vital the long, hot days make his brother, but years of conditioning keep getting in the way.

Summer is dry heat evaporating the sweat on his skin as soon as it appears. It’s the coppery taste of anger in the back of his throat, and sleepless nights spent shifting on mattresses that were new thirty years ago. It’s the glare of sunlight in his eyes, making him blink so that he never sees Dean’s fist coming and he ends up on his back again; Dad’s eyes are dark with disappointment when Dean apologizes and helps him back up.

As soon as school lets out, Dad abandons even the pretense of normal, and they have to pack up the car and Sam knows that he won’t see an actual apartment or house until summer’s wound down to a dusty halt. Dad’s more driven than usual during the summer, and he drives them in turn from motel room to motel room until Sam feels like screaming. Feels like running away because anything has to be better than this.

But Dean’s sitting next to him in the back seat, even though Dad offered to let him sit up front and navigate. He’s telling Sam about this awesome comic book he read in the last drug store they stopped in and Sam feels trapped by the weight of the love he has for his brother, feels it chaining him to this sweat-slick car seat. As much as he wants to leave, he can’t really imagine life without Dean invading his space, without that cock-sure grin and swagger hanging just at his shoulder, just within reach.

Summer is the stone of certainty that hangs around Sam’s neck. Any other time of year he can fool himself that there’s something more out there, that Dean has other aspirations and dreams just like he does. Three-fourths of the year, Sam can plan out their escape together, and he believes deep in his gut that one day, when they’re old enough, he and Dean will just stop. They’ll live together in a house with a yard and have a dog and a car of their own that they’ll never drive because they won’t go anywhere, ever.

But when the sun is pouring down on Sam’s back and his muscles are trembling and his breath is coming hard and heavy, summer tears that daydream to shreds. Dad is clapping his hands and calling for _just one more lap, boys_ , and Sam wants to murder the man. He’s just going to drop and lay there and if Dad wants to whup his ass for it then _fine_. Dean is already moving, even though he has to be as tired as Sam—more, because Dad was sparring with him earlier—and there’s this determined grimace on his face. And that right there is the moment that Sam knows there isn’t anything else for his brother: just this endless rambling and hunting and killing. Forever and ever, amen.

Summer is a scarred bully, dark eyes flashing and heavy muscles bunching. It’s the tearing up of whatever weak, paltry roots Sam has managed to put down, and it’s losing Dean to Dad, to this life he hates. It’s being buried in Dean and Dad and Dad and Dean until Sam’s scrambling for air, lashing out and kicking and praying, just _praying_ for some way clear of it all.

  
**Autumn (Jessica)**   


Sam can’t bring himself to hate autumn, even after it takes Jessica away from him. Autumn is a benediction; a blessing of damp leaves spilling down across his head. It’s a slow, reluctant, grinding halt to the madness of summer, and Dean’s scowling face as they wait for the bus.

Autumn smells like chalk and apples and it tastes like chocolate and the peanut butter sandwiches Dean makes for them in the morning. Autumn is the slate grey façade of a hundred institutional buildings, and the ringing of bells and the shuffle of feet in halls. It’s staining his hands with ink and pencil-lead instead of blood and gunpowder.

Autumn is freedom and independence. It’s finally being able to stand on his own two feet, without Dean lurking behind him, ready to dart forward if Sam stumbles.

Sam burns through autumn like a brushfire, and it never lasts long enough. He spends every afternoon at the library because school is the one thing that Dad will let him miss training for. The secret, dusty smell of the books makes him smile, and outside the sky is a blue so bright that it makes his chest burn, and dusk is a purpling, gentle slide into night.

Dad keeps hunting and moving them around, but they don’t travel nearly as much, and Sam only has to hunt sometimes, and then only ever on the weekend. Because even if Dad’s pissed when Sam tells him about Stanford, he’s always said that schooling comes first, even before the job. So if Sam asks in just the right way, Dad will let him stay behind to catch up on his reading, or finish up a paper, or work through his list of math problems. Dean always goes with him, even when Dad initially says no, so Sam has hours of blissful peace and, more importantly, _privacy_. More often than not, he doesn’t actually get any work done, but spends the time vegging out in front of the TV, being normal.

Autumn is also the first time he ever sees Stanford. Sam spends three years there, summers too, which is an earth-shaking record for a Winchester, and even though he gets off to a rocky start at first, it’s where he learns how to talk to other people. People who aren’t Dad or Dean.

Autumn is Jess’ season, both the beginning and the end. The first time he sees her is on the quad, with a red ribbon in her hair and a pile of books clutched to her chest. He asks her the way to Cubberly Auditorium and she laughs and says that _she_ was going to ask _him_ that, and it turns out that they’re both on their way to hear Stanley Fish’s lecture on tolerance and free speech and that’s pretty much that. It ends in fire, ends with Sam covered in his own sweat and the smell of Dean’s coat. Ends almost two weeks shy of their third year anniversary.

But it’s the first sight of her that he remembers, when the ache in his chest eases and the seasons bleed around to autumn again. Her smile, and the way she laugh-snorted whenever something was really funny, and how they once got in a screaming fight because he left the toilet seat up and she sat down without looking and how stupid they were, how foolish, when it was never going to last.

Autumn is a woman with dimples and a tiny waist that Sam can almost span with one hand, and her smile is kind. And no matter how bad things get, when he can’t lean on Dean any more without breaking him, Sam comes back to this time, to this place. He remembers autumn, wrapping it around himself like a blanket, and refuses to let go.

  
**Winter (Dean)**   


Sam should like winter best. When the cold hits, Dad stops dragging them around, loosens up a little. Even Dean calms down, like Dad’s mood is contagious.

But Sam spends winter keyed up and anxious.

It’s not normal, staying in one place for so long: it feels _wrong_ , like the punch line to a joke that he’s not getting. Dad hunts rarely, if at all, and he lets training slide. And somehow Sam finds himself asking about spirits, and werewolves, and black dogs. He pesters Dad until he agrees to watch Sam practice his knife-work. When Sam accepts his criticism and barked commands without hesitation, Dad looks at him, puzzled.

Outside, there’s snow piling up in drifts and Dean just wants to lie around in front of the fire like some kind of lizard. Sam has to whine and wheedle for almost an hour before Dean finally stirs and agrees to go out and play. Sam hates having to fight for Dean’s attention like that, and it bothers him even more when he can’t figure out what he’s competing with. It’s not like there are any girls around, and there’s nothing particularly compelling on TV. The only adversary Sam can find is winter, and the way it turns his brother into someone else. Sam knows he should be glad that Dean’s relaxing, but he feels the absence of his brother’s intensity as a hollow, sore place inside him.

Sam resents winter a little, with its long nights and soft, white blanket. He resents it because it changes his life, and the fact of his resentment makes him question himself, question what he really wants, and that only makes it worse. Because when Sam’s begging Dad to take him along on a hunt, while Dean just lies on the couch with a blanket pulled up to his chin and the remote in his hand, half-listening to them and half-watching the TV, something is really fucked up.

When he’s at Stanford, winter is when Sam misses Dean the most, and Dad too, if he wants to admit it to himself. He keeps turning around on his way to class, hoping that maybe one of these times he’s going to find Dean there, leaning against the side of the Impala with a shit-eating grin on his face. But he knows that Dean won’t be there, knows that Dean and Dad have stopped somewhere, and that Dean has shut down again. He’ll barely be able to work up the motivation to head over to the bar once night falls, let alone drive all the way out here to see Sam.

Except that one year—that first year—he _does_ see Dean, even though his brother is obviously trying to be inconspicuous. Dean’s slouched in a car—not the Impala, that would be too easy to spot—watching him. Sam can tell that it isn’t the first time Dean has done this, and he realizes that he’s only catching Dean at it now because it’s winter, and that makes his brother just a little slower than usual, makes him a little careless. Which would make Sam worry, except that he knows Dad will keep Dean from doing anything but quick, easy jobs until the weather turns again.

Sam keeps his gaze moving, pretends he hasn’t seen Dean because he knows that it would make his brother uncomfortable if he knew he’d been found out. Still, Sam can’t help smiling as he heads off to class.

Winter is a young, broad-shouldered man with his hands shoved deep into his pockets, grin lazy and wide. It nettles Sam where he’s most insecure, in that grey area of his hopes and desires. But winter also reminds him of the things he has to be thankful for: of Dean’s constant care, Dad’s quiet strength. Maybe he will never be completely comfortable in his own skin during those long, cold nights, but it’s winter that tells Sam where home is, and that’s good enough for him.


End file.
